Remembrance
by charmingly-holly
Summary: Tom Riddle laughed in triumph as the dust descended and the colors faded, and Ginny Weasley had seen in his eyes the snake that had slaughtered the world.


A/N: _Well..._

_ This is a story I wrote for the Poetry to Prose contest on The Great Break (livejournal community, if you didn't know. Great place. Go there. Join.) _

_It's...weird._

_Read it anyways._

_ And review too._

_ Yes. Do that._

_-h_

_p.s: Read the poem before the actual story please. I know people skip over those, but seriously. Read it. Do it.  
_

_**Disclaimer:** Hark! What ho! I doth not own. Thou suest me not. _

Remembrance

"And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea."

_The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_ by T. S. Elliot

She wore a long black cloak, the hood pulled up and over her head so that she was just another faceless creature wandering through the endless night. Her arms were folded in front of her, hands overlapping so that the long sleeves of her cloak meshed together and tapered down to where the ends skimmed and danced just above the pavement. The frayed edges of the cloak dragged across the wet pavement, soaking up the dirt and filth that seemed to consume this world in which she existed.

She existed because she could not be described as living, for that would require emotion. Emotion was forbidden in her world. Unless, of course, that emotion was fear. That was always allowed, if only because it was inevitable that one would feel it.

Her cloak drew away the filth as she passed, but it always replaced itself. Rivulets of murky water crept around the bumps in the pavement and seeped back into the cracks and shallow puddles, leaving no indication that her cloak had swept across the area and, however temporarily, dragged away the unhappiness.

Shifting eyes that dared to lurk between the window blinds and hide behind the cracks between the dull and dusty curtains gracing their dirty windows glanced over her in their hasty sweep of the area before retreating back into the depths of their gaping houses with a swish of a window blind or a flutter of a curtain.

She was one of many in their eyes, though she was very much alone.

She seemed almost to be eerily gliding, the only evidence to the contrary being the quick, _shap shap shap_, of her feet, hidden beneath her dragging cloak striding across the wet pavement. She leaned forward slightly as if it were an effort to push through the air in front of her. And indeed it was; the air was heavy with pain, anger, guilt…evil.

And it was also stuck in time.

They leaned forward too: the other black-robed figures. Though they for an entirely different reason. Greed drove them forward. And hunger. They leaned towards their prey, ready to strike, sensing the fear, and sucking in a long, rattling breath. A sharp cry, a muffled sob…and then the heavy silence and oppressing misery that accompanied a fate worse than death.

Indeed she could very well have been one of them: if it had not been for her eyes. Darting eyes, they were: observant, calculating…passionate. Two smoldering coals residing in the darkest depths of a passionless world.

She saw one now, slicing through the air effortlessly, fishlike almost, as if it were swimming through a brown haze of murky water. Gliding earnestly down a street perpendicular to her own, passing over a sewer and disturbing the yellow smoke emitting from it, the creature swept into what was once the doorway of a clothing store and extended a scaly and claw-like hand towards the door handle. A bell tinkled in the dark depths of the abandoned and forlorn store, though it no longer sounded warm and welcoming as it once did, but rather like it was tolling at the funeral of its long-dead world. Either way, it announced the presence of fear and misery seeping between its rows of moth-eaten sweaters and heavy woolen cloaks.

It had been nearing winter when they had run out of time, quite literally, and it had been drizzling.

It was still nearing winter, and it was still drizzling. Though they had already run out of time. The streetlight on the corner was still buzzing and flickering, and the fire-in-a-barrel beside it was still burning the same newspaper it had for two years straight.

Or it would have been two years if time had still existed. Time had stopped on a rainy day nearing winter when Tom Riddle had murdered Harry Potter in a battle atop a hillside on the outskirts of the city.

And time had ceased to exist.

No one knew why it had happened like this. Why time had suddenly stopped. All anyone knew was that when Harry had failed to reappear at the bottom of that hillside, the world had stopped turning.

But she didn't think he had died. Voldemort had wanted to stop time for himself, had wanted to be immortal. But he wouldn't want anyone joining him.

After all, she knew him almost better than anyone else.

The noise of her footsteps died as she came to a halt between two circles of yellow light emitting from the street lamps. Her glowing eyes fixed on the window to the clothing store and the yellow smoke that was creeping its long fingers over it, playing across the words painted there. The fingers curled and danced across the window, framing the chipped and faded letters of the store.

_A Stitch in Time._

At one point in her life she would have snorted at the irony. But she couldn't allow that now; it would expose too much feeling, unblock the barrier holding her emotions back.

That would be disastrous. If she let herself think too much, she would remember; and if she remembered, she would never be able to forget.

And that wouldn't do: not when what she would remember was too painful to forget.

She resumed walking; turning left on the street the dementor had just parted and continuing past row upon row of shabby, desolate houses. She turned after she passed Number 11, walked through a fence with no gate that ran along the edge of the sidewalk and then disappeared into thin air in the alleyway between Numbers 11 and 13.

Ginny Weasley stepped into the grimy hallway of Number 12 Grimmauld Place and stood for a moment, breathing slowly and deeply. It was always hard venturing outside the protected walls of Headquarters. Keeping up your mental barriers and pushing through the heavy air was no small feat, especially when you came across a dementor along the way. She may have been pretending to be one in order to avoid discovery, but that didn't mean being in the presence of one of the vile creatures was any easier.

That one had nearly made her remember.

She shuddered at the thought and then looked up at the sound of footsteps, "Ginny dear, is that you?" Her mother was coming towards her from down the hall.

Ginny pulled back her hood and let her brilliant red hair fall to her shoulders, "Yes Mum, it's me."

"Oh dear, you look dreadful. So pale," her mother touched a shaky hand to her daughter's cheek and turned concerned eyes on her, "Here, I've made you some toast and tea. Come along."

Ginny resisted the urge to tell her she wasn't hungry, that she wasn't thirsty, that she could not be either. She resisted the urge also, to tell her that she had toast and tea every day: that she had to have toast and tea because that is what her mother had made that faithful day. That the toast and tea would never run out and never cool down no matter how many times she sipped at the mug or nibbled on the bread. It would be cruel to point these things out; her mother was just trying to bring some semblance of normality to their situation.

It was her defense mechanism, as forgetting was Ginny's.

Ginny followed behind her mother, not bothering to soften her footsteps as she passed the portrait of Mrs. Black. She had been sleeping the day time had stopped and therefore could not wake up and resume her mission of ridding her precious house of the vile blood-traitors that used it as protection. It was about the only good that had come from the whole ordeal.

They entered the kitchen and Ginny turned left to take a seat at the long, worn wooden table, while her mother turned right to retrieve the perpetually warm toast and tea. She sat down on the bench, contemplating the various scratches and scorch marks that slashed across the table and wondered how many he had made.

And then she stopped wondering in fear of remembering.

She had set strict boundaries around her mind. Impenetrable walls that even the most skilled climber could never scale. She had constructed them only a few hours after it had happened. After Voldemort had descended the hill shakily, wobbling to and fro, head bowed against the drizzling rain.

At first they had thought it was Harry. That he was victorious, exhausted from battle, but victorious nonetheless. Their heads had lifted and their eyes had filled with passionate joy. Hope and victory and happiness had risen in their chests until they were afraid they would burst from the thrill of it. Ginny had gone so far as taking a few steps towards him, her hand outstretched shakily and tentatively so that she could touch him and make sure he was real. Daring to hope that their efforts had not been fruitless. That the reign of darkness and terror that had coiled itself around the world like a snake taking its time in killing its pray, enjoying and savoring every minute of it, watching with hungry eyes as its captive struggled to breath, struggled to break free, as its eyes widened in terror and desperation until it finally went limp: that this darkness was finally over.

But then Voldemort had thrown his head back, his arms raised above him in victory. His eyes had gleamed maniacally and a malevolent and crooked smile had stretched across his gruesome and skull-like face. His teeth had been rotting, turning black and shriveled in his mouth so that they looked like the hard pits of black olives; tiny fissures had formed in his lips as he smiled so that blood had collected in little droplets on his thin lips to slowly creep down his chin. He had looked up to the sky, a picture of grotesque victory, and he had laughed a long, harsh laugh, the sound rasping out of his throat and squeezing through his lips in sporadic gasps.

Tom Riddle laughed in triumph as the dust descended and the colors faded, and Ginny Weasley had seen in his eyes the snake that had slaughtered the world.

They had fled back to Grimmauld Place, everyone from the Order piling into the front hallway, breathing heavily and shaking from exhaustion and grief. Their eyes had been filled with sorrow and desperation and panic, and they had stared at each other in disbelief, searching desperately for reassurance, scrambling to maintain their hold on hope.

It had been then when the vase had been knocked off its heavy, black marble pedestal. It was a large vase, the traditional shape of a pear which opened out at the top. It was smooth, glassy dark green, rivulets of silver running through it like tiny erratic rivers on its surface. Coiled at the bottom was a pewter-colored snake, its eyes made of rubies and its tongue flicked out and tasting the air. It had wobbled at first, teetering on the nose of the snake as if it might have decided to balance like that, poised on the edge of a cliff. Then, slowly, as if it were underwater, it had swayed on its edge and toppled the rest of the way to the ground.

As it neared the ground it was if gravity had reappeared. It shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, the snake clanging on the ground and causing the rubies in its eye sockets to pop out and join the shattered pieces scattered about the floor. They had stared at the pieces, transfixed on this little piece of reality, clinging to the idea of normalcy in the form of a broken vase.

But the comfort had not lasted long. The green ceramic pieces on the floor had started to shake, as if they were a thousand tiny pieces of metal and the pedestal was a magnet. They had flown into the air and reformed, coming together like a perfectly fit puzzle. The snake had shot to the top of the pedestal, its ruby eyes fixing themselves into place again, and the vase had gently laid itself on top of it's protector's coils.

It had been the first of many incidents that had gradually dimmed and destroyed the hope in all of their eyes.

Ginny pushed the memory from her mind as her mother returned from the kitchen with the tea tray and set it in front of her.

"There now," she said, "Drink up. Lord knows you need your strength." And then she bustled out of the kitchen to continue cleaning the permanently dusty bookshelves. Telling Ginny she needed her strength was the closest she would come to admitting the reality of their predicament.

Ginny stared at her steaming mug of tea and sighed.

Would the tea ever run out? Would she ever get to the last sip? Would it ever cool enough to get past the stage where it was just hot enough to burn her tongue, but not quite hot enough to leave behind a throbbing blister on the tip? Would she ever be able to see the dregs swirling around in the bottom of the cup?

Would it ever end?

She didn't like to think about the answer because she couldn't help but think that it was no. After all, if you really thought about it, could there be an ending in a world with no time?

She didn't like to think about the answer to that, either.

To break the monotony, she picked up the tray and carried it up the stairs to her room. She crossed the room and stepped out onto her balcony, placing the tray on the small wrought iron table to her left. She looked at her surroundings with sad eyes and sighed.

On the railing there were balanced several small flowerpots, once containing flowers from her mother's garden at the Burrow. They had been alive that day, but when he had won, their color had faded and they had withered and dried up so that they were stiff stalks sticking up out of the soil at odd angles, their petals gone and their leaves hanging rigidly from their cadaverous forms.

All the color had gone that day. It was as if the world was suddenly submerged in the murky brown waters of a swamp. Colors had dulled to where they all had a brown, dirty tinge to them, paint had chipped away and disintegrated into grime, a layer of dust had descended over everything so that it all seemed somehow forbidden, like the dust was a barrier blocking them from the past.

But Ginny's hair stayed the same, vivid red. It was why Remus always said, "Ah Ginny, so glad you're back. It's nice to have a little bit of color in the world again," whenever she entered a room. She always managed to smile warmly at him and give him a brief hug.

But it was only because she practiced. She had faces for everyone she met, all portraying what that person needed to see. For her mother it was normalcy. For her brothers it was strength. And for Remus it was a little bit of happiness, however small. It saved her the trouble of having to answer their questions or reminisce on times past.

She wasn't allowed to reminisce.

She told herself it was because reminiscing would accomplish nothing. Because it was useless. Because it would only cause pain and grief.

But hidden somewhere in the back of her mind, beneath the dull monotony of her world now, beneath the organized, almost methodic thoughts that rhythmically siphoned through her brain, she knew that she was lying to herself.

She was afraid. Afraid that remembering would bring back the pain, the horrible shock, the plummeting of her stomach, the disappearance of all that was good in her body, the dissolving of every last drop of her fierce belief that good would win against evil. She was afraid she would crumple to the ground and shatter into a thousand glass-like pieces, like the grimy and cobweb-filled vase in the foyer.

Only she wouldn't be able to put herself back together again.

She stared now at the dead stalks of the once beautiful flowers, trying not to think about how her life once was. Her eyes skimmed over the pots and landed on the chipped and dirty ceramic blue-brown bowl balanced precariously on the corner of the railings. It was filled with water, and water still dripped into it slowly from the gutter above her head, but it never overflowed. In fact, the water level never changed.

The bowl had been from the Burrow as well. She had brought it in the hopes that the birds would find it useful as a bath, and she could have a little piece of home with her at that dreadful house. She had discovered that there were no birds near Grimmauld Place besides pigeons, and that they didn't like to bathe.

And then time had stopped and memories of home and happiness and normalcy had been replaced with neat and logical and raw thoughts on how to survive in this new world.

She looked at the rippling water in the bowl now and unwillingly remembered how she had once, when time had first stopped, checked it every day for feathers. She had still held hope then. She had still believed that it might end. She imagined one now, small, black, like the down that filled the Hogwarts pillows, drifting on the surface of the water, jerking occasionally as another drop fell into the bowl, like a leaf boat trapped in an eddy of a stream.

And she realized that she was not imagining it.

She dipped her hand into the murky rainwater, letting the liquid flow into the cup of her hand until the feather came with it. She lifted her hand slowly, letting the water trickle between her fingers until only the feather was left, splayed against her palm like a tattoo, surrounded by small specks of dirt the water had left behind. Like it was part of her very skin.

She examined the feather with her speculative eyes, turning her hand this way and that, until finally her hand froze and her eyes widened.

It couldn't be…it wasn't possible…was it?

A million questions raced through her brain. Weighing the possibilities, considering the coincidences, examining the facts. She never took anything for granted anymore. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened here. It couldn't. The appearance of even something as small and insignificant as a wispy black feather broke the monotony, and that just wasn't possible. There was no such thing as a random coincidence anymore. No such thing as a chance happening.

Was he alive?

Her head snapped up at movement from the street. Her hand automatically grabbed her wand and her musings were temporarily forgotten. A figure stepped out of the shadows down the road and on the other side of the street. It wore a long black cloak, the hood pulled up and over its head so that it was just another faceless creature wandering through the endless night.

It glided to the middle of the street, and its hooded head turned back and forth as if it were looking for something. It moved down towards Ginny, still turning its head this way and that, still searching for an unknown destination.

It stopped directly in front of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and its head turned slowly to face Ginny on her balcony. She stiffened and prepared herself mentally for the cold that was to come. But it never did.

The figure seemed to have stopped moving completely, frozen in place with its head turned towards her. A realization hit Ginny so suddenly that she nearly cried out in alarm.

The figure hadn't been leaning forward.

She drew in a sharp breath and snapped her eyes down to the feather still plastered to her palm. Water was still clinging to it, causing its wispy tendrils to adhere to each other and its pliant shaft to bend and convert itself into a zigzag shape. Not unlike a lightning bolt.

She looked back to the figure, her eyes wide. It shifted slightly, just enough for her to catch a glimpse of the glare of the streetlight hitting a lens and then the smoldering green that lay beneath.

She gasped and clutched her heart, something she hadn't done since that day, fearing that it would expose too much emotion.

It was him.

He nodded almost imperceptibly and then turned and continued down the street, not leaning forward in the slightest.

Ginny watched him disappear a little way down the road and nearly smiled before she realized that she must have been hallucinating. She had been remembering a lot while looking at her flowerpots; her barriers could have briefly been broken. Or, if she wanted to blame anyone besides herself, it could have been a real dementor, and it could have forced her to remember the green.

She tore her eyes from the spot where the dementor had disappeared and glanced down at her hand, searching for the feather that had started it all. It was gone.

She sighed again, and turned back to pick up her tea. She mustn't allow herself to reminisce as she was doing. It never could lead to any good.

It might even cause her to remember everything, and that couldn't be tolerated.

She brought the cup to her lips and was preparing for the inevitable sting of the too-hot tea sliding over her tongue, when her eyes fixed upon something over the rim of her mug.

She had caught a glimpse of green peeking out beneath the soil of the pot nearest her rainwater bowl. She hurried over to it, teacup still resting on her lips, and peered down into the pot.

No, there was no denying it. A small green stem was pushing its way out of the soil in that pot.

She narrowed her eyes at it and then snapped them to the bowl. She let go of her cup with one hand and ran a finger along the filthy inside edge of the birdbath. The dirt came off on her finger, leaving a streak of brilliant blue in its wake.

Her eyes widened as she brought her finger up closer to her face. And realization hit her.

She hadn't been hallucinating. He was back.

They still had time.

From inside, she heard her mother let out a sharp yelp. If the dirt had come off the rainwater bowl, there was no doubt the dust was doing the same on the books.

Slowly Ginny's lips turned up at the corners. Her dimples came out and her teeth showed.

She was smiling for the first time in, if you wanted to be technical about it, three minutes.

She turned her eyes down the road where he had disappeared and then turned them to face the center of the city, where the evil was pulsating.

Slowly, she lifted her mug in a mock salute.

_Cheers, Voldemort_, she thought, _Time's up._

And she tipped her head back, drained her cup of cold tea, and allowed herself to remember how to hope, how to feel, and how to believe.

_A/N: Erm...right._

_ ...Morbid. _

_ ...Boring._

_ ...Well the responses ya'll give me should be...interesting._

_I will return to Cheese Wheels now. And Newton Knows Best._

_ I swear._

_ Kinda._

_ Review?_

_-h _


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